Legalectric

There’s been change afoot as the facts of the infeasibility of CO2 capture and storage filters up to the higher regions of the cesspool, and as the financing nightmares and high capital costs of IGCC are paraded in public as the Indiana Duke IGCC project moves forward, and as, of course, the DOE’s EIS (here’s the DOE’s project page) for Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project drags on and on and on as the agency refuses, thankfully, to issue the Record of Decision on that… and slowly, painfully slowly, the truth about this IGCC pipedream is coming out.

A few telling tidbits, first, that they’ve given up on FutureGen IGCC, YEAAAAAAAAA:

DOE to provide $1B to revamped FutureGen

Katherine Ling, E&E reporter

The Energy Department today announced $1 billion in stimulus funding for a carbon capture and sequestration retrofit project it is labeling “FutureGen 2.0.”

The new project would retrofit a mothballed unit of an Ameren Energy Resources coal-fired power plant in Meredosia, Ill., to capture 90 percent of carbon dioxide and other pollutants using “oxy-combustion” technology, and then transport and sequester the CO2 in a regional storage site in Mattoon, Ill. The Mattoon location — the site of the original FutureGen project — would also house a training facility to teach oxy-combustion technology and retrofitting skills.

DOE is providing the $1 billion to the FutureGen Alliance, Ameren, Babcock & Wilcox and Air Liquide Process & Construction Inc. to develop the facility. The total cost of retrofitting the plant and building a “collection facility” for carbon dioxide, a training facility and CO2 pipelines will be about $1.13 billion in federal investment, with the expectation of up to $250 million in private investment, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters. Durbin has been a strong advocate for the project and repeatedly requested appropriations for it.

The project would be a significant change from the original FutureGen clean coal project announced by President George W. Bush and DOE in 2003. The original project supported by DOE and the FutureGen Alliance — a consortium of major coal and utility companies — aimed to build a new coal power plant on 444 acres in Mattoon that would use integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology, produce hydrogen and electricity, and capture and sequester CO2. Bush and then-Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in 2008 that they were walking away from the project because of skyrocketing costs (Greenwire, June 12, 2009).

“Today’s announcement will help ensure the U.S. remains competitive in a carbon-constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.

“This investment in the world’s first, commercial-scale, oxy-combustion power plant will help to open up the over $300 billion market for coal unit repowering and position the country as a leader in an important part of the global clean energy economy,” Chu added.

Oxy-combustion technology utilizes oxygen and CO2 instead of air to produce a concentrated CO2 stream for safe, permanent storage, DOE said. The technology also eliminates almost all of the mercury, SOx, NOx and particulate pollutants from plant emissions and could be potentially the lowest-cost approach to clean up existing coal-fired facilities and capture CO2 for geologic storage, according to the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

“It really didn’t make any sense to prove a technology that has already been proven” and move forward with IGCC, Durbin said. “I think this is going to build way beyond the original FutureGen concept.”

Durbin said the plan is to conduct engineering and land acquisition this fall and start on construction next spring.

The construction of the pipelines, facilities and retrofit will create about 900 jobs in southern Illinois and another 1,000 jobs at suppliers across the state, according to DOE.

This study was released last June, which shows that leakage of CO2 is a major problem, and which makes sequestration not feasible:

Long-term Effectiveness and Consequences of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration – Shaffer

Can’t have information like that getting out, so USA Today, of course, plays it with the following headline — DUH, of course critics pan the study — and this is the best they could come up with and it took two months!

Critics question carbon storage study

Worries about leaks from buried greenhouse gasses unearthed in a recent climate study look overblown, say critics.

Carbon sequestration, burying carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs, has emerged in recent years as one option for continuing to burn coal and other fossil fuels from power plants while addressing global warming. A 2004 Science journal report by Princeton researchers, for example, pointed to carbon sequestration as one strategy, among many, for humanity dodging the climate consequences of pumping global warming gases into the atmosphere.

A June Nature Geoscience report by Gary Shaffer of the Danish Center for Earth System Science, however found such carbon dioxide reservoirs would have to leak less than 1% per millennium to help the climate. “The dangers of carbon sequestration are real and the development of (carbon sequestration) should not be used as a way of justifying continued high fossil fuel emissions,” Shaffer said in a statement, alluding to a debate over whether “clean coal” power plants, which would store their greenhouse gas emissions underground, are a worthwhile goal for addressing climate change.

The study made news in climate circles, but some have since pointed out problems with Shaffer’s study. “I feel that this calculation adds little to the question of whether we should use carbon capture and storage,” wrote Nature assistant news editor Richard Van Noorden, suggesting that researchers need to figure out whether carbon can be safely pumped underground in the first place before worrying about 20,000 years from now, an end point of the study.

This month, an Energy Department analysis from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) of the study found “two deeply flawed assumptions which combine to grossly overstate the impacts associated with society using carbon dioxide capture and storage.”

First, the Nature Geoscience analysis suggested that carbon sequestration would be used to bury enough greenhouse gas to stave off all future climate warming. At best, carbon sequestration could store only about half of the carbon dioxide emissions responsible for global warming, notes the PNNL critique, and likely much less. And those carbon dioxide emissions are only partly responsible for projected future average surface temperature increases (anywhere from 2 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit depending on actual emissions, according to March National Research Council reports) alongside deforestation, and other greenhouse gasses:

“The assumption that (sequestration) is the only mitigation technology available is therefore highly questionable as a simplifying assumption as it leads to a dramatic overestimation of the amount of CO2 required to be sequestered. This significant overestimation of CO2 stored leads directly to the enormous volume of leakage and the resulting harm from imperfect retention reported by Shaffer.”

Second, the whole point of carbon sequestration underground is that the carbon dioxide would chemically bind to the rock layers there, preventing it from leaking, over decades and centuries.

“My study was not meant to propose if and how much (sequestration) to use but rather to look for the first time at the long term consequences of any leakage back to the atmosphere of any CO2 sequestered,” Shaffer says, by email. “My results show that high emissions with (sequestration) is not the same as low emissions without (sequestration) because of the leakage and its consequences.”

But the amount of sequestration contemplated in the study is “off by at least two orders of magnitude,” says MIT’s Ruben Juanes. “I’m as skeptical of carbon sequestration as anyone — the energy penalty it incurs is substantial — but the assumptions made in this (Nature Geoscience) paper are very hard to justify.”

Princeton’s Michael Celia, another sequestration researcher, notes that research already shows that 95% of any carbon injected into a reservoir would become trapped within 1,000 years. “In general I agree with the PNNL comments,” Celia says, by email.

Carbon sequestration critics often make over-sized assumptions about the technology to write it off, Juanes adds, such as objecting to the amount of pipe needed to immediately equip every existing power plant in the nation with it, making a one-time purchase out of an economic process that would play out over decades. “No single technology can immediately bridge the gaps in climate,” Juanes says.

By Dan Vergano

I’ve just by utter accident discovered a few things…

We all remember Byron Starns, attorney for Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project, the coal gasification project from hell.  Check his bio – CLICK HERE – he’s done some amazing things, that Reserve Mining case in particular.

Now let’s take a walk back on memory lane, the 2003 Prairie Island bill, where the “Environmental Coalition”, i.e., Izaak Walton League, MCEA, ME3/Fresh Energy, and Xcel and Tom Micheletti did a deal that advance wind some, let Xcel continue using Prairie Island and increased cask storage, and opened the door for Micheletti’s Excelsior Energy and their IGCC plant that they’d been promoting since the 2002 session.  On one hand, the “Environmental Coalition” including MCEA, in the middle we have Xcel, and on the other we have Tom Micheletti and Excelsior Energy…

Here’s the 2003 Prairie Island bill:

Minnesota Session Laws 2003 – 1st Special Session, Chapter 11

Here’s what it did for Mesaba (as if calling burning garbage “renewable” wasn’t enough):

Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project related parts of 2003 Chapter 11

When the Power Purchase Agreements for Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project came up at the PUC,  MCEA intervened, both as a party and representing others:

Petition to Intervene – MCEA – Waltons – Fresh Energy

To look at the full docket, go to www.puc.state.mn.us and “Search Dockets” and search for  PPA docket “05-1993” and Siting docket “06-668.”

And look who filed a Notice of Appearance for Excelsior Energy dated April 27, 2006:

Notice of Appearance – Byron Starns, et al – PPA Docket

And representing Excelsior Energy in the Siting Docket dated September 26, 2006:

Notice of Appearance – Byron Starns, et al – Siting Docket

And look who is noted in the MCEA Annual Reports as providing legal services to MCEA in 2005 and 2006, look in the fine print, why it’s Byron Starns!

MCEA Annual Report 2005

MCEA Annual Report 2006

Oh, but that’s not all, look who joins the Board of MCEA in 2007 … and remains through 2008… and 2009 according to his bio on the LSD site — why, it’s Byron Starns again!:

Board of Directors, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, 2007–2009 (linked)

2007 – MCEA’s IRS 990

2008 – MCEA’s IRS 990

His bio states he was on the MCEA board in 2009, but the 2009 IRS 990 does not list him as having been on it at reporting year end.

I just spoke with Byron Starns, who, with the forwarning to don his Kevlar vest, was kind enough to entertain a few questions, and said that (close to quotes but not quite):

MCEA has an ethical requirement, that everyone on the Board must make full disclosure of interests and conflicts, and that when issues do come up, anyone with a conflict has to leave the room.  He said he didn’t participate in any decisions related to energy matters for MCEA.  He does not recall if the fact that he was on MCEA’s board was disclosed in the Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project PPA or Siting dockets.  Also, he noted he is no longer on the Board of MCEA.

I don’t recall any disclosure about this — do you?

Is it “not a conflict” because MCEA’s interests and the interests of their “clients” the Waltons and Fresh Energy are so closely aligned with those of Excelsior Energy because of that 2003 agreement?

A little birdie has been looking around at Mesaba — but first…

Here’s a report of an obvious problem with IGCC from John Blair, Valley Watch— the pipedream is just that, and the truth that those of us in the midst of coal gasification know too well is finally coming out publicly:

Carbon capture plans failing – IEA

2010-06-14 18:22

London – The world is failing to meet goals to develop carbon capture technology, the energy watchdog to industrialised economies said on Monday as it reported back to G8 countries on their past promises.

At a summit in Japan two years ago, eight of the world’s leading economies backed an International Energy Agency goal to launch 20 large-scale projects to demonstrate carbon capture and storage technology by 2010.

In fact there were only five such projects in operation, all commissioned before the 2008 summit, said the energy adviser to 28 developed countries ahead of next week’s G8 summit in Canada.

None of those existing projects tested the full chain of CCS processes, which involves trapping and then piping and storing underground carbon emissions from coal and gas power plants.

“(The 2010 goal) remains a challenge and will require that governments and industry work in concert,” the IEA said in a report to the Canada G8 summit.

Large projects

One new Australian project had launched, however, and was proceeding to construction to test the full CCS process.

Also on a positive note, the IEA estimated that governments had committed over the past two years to provide over $26bn in funding support for demonstration projects. That compares with an annual funding need of between $5bn and $6.5bn over the next decade.

The IEA argues that CCS is a vital technology to fight climate change because it could allow developing countries to continue to burn supplies of cheap coal and still curb carbon emissions, as they try to grow their economies. Developing countries are now the main global source of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The IEA estimates that about 100 CCS large-scale projects are needed worldwide by 2020, about half in developing countries, to stay within safer limits of climate change.

The report calculated that governments are committed to support between 19 and 43 large projects by 2020, and cited other estimates of about 80 projects at various stages of development.

“Much greater effort will be needed to meet future deployment levels,” it said.

– Reuters

Meanwhile, the little birdie…  We’ve been in this odd and unenviable place, a big horrible coal gasification plant, the Mesaba Project, promoted by Excelsior Energy, a shell corp with nada for assets, which demanded a Power Purchase Agreement then denied by the PUC, and yet inexplicably granted a siting permit for not just “one” but TWO projects totalling over 1,000MW of IGCC!  OH… MY… DOG!  So it’s in limbo land, and we’re wondering how on earth this thing stays on life support as it rots away…

The little birdie had this report:

Excelsior Energy was supposed to have filed a new air permit, and the MPCA was supposed to have reviewed the 2006 air permit application “to assure that the protocol was acceptable to federal land managers.”  Well, that didn’t happen, the “review” by MPCA OR the filing of the new air permit, which was supposed to have been filed last week.

2006 Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project Air Permit

… and the little birdie while looking around found this in their “Frequently Asked Questions” on their site, then scroll down to “View common transmission misconceptions” to p. 2:

Myth: The Mesaba Project will force wind energy off from the transmission grid.

Fact: Mesaba will make upgrades to the transmission grid so that the electricity from the Mesaba Project does not interfere with any existing or planned wind energy.

This myth stems from a misinterpretation of the Mesaba Unit One G477 and G519 System Impact Reports. In preparing the reports, the engineers determined that their base case was unrealistic. Therefore, they used their engineering judgment to make some assumptions so the reports could provide meaningful results. Although those assumptions were made only for the purposes of the report, an internet “blogger” misinterpreted the assumptions to mean that the Mesaba Project would force wind energy off from the transmission grid. In fact, the transmission upgrades associated with the Mesaba Project will ensure that it will not interfere with any “network resources” such as wind farms.

Hmmmmmmmmm…

And this “Myth” section is a lot like their letter to Commerce regarding EIS Scoping Comments:

Excelsior Energy Response to EIS Scoping Comments 11-7-06

Anyway, I’d like to see this blog posting they’re referring to!  Misinterpreted?  Naaaaaaah, it’s all the interpretations of those presenting and reviewing at the MAPP meeting.  Their claims are sorta like the matter of using a site with existing infrastructure:

I wonder what it was that blew their dress up… could it be:

So now it’s deliverable??? SWAG! January 9th, 2007

They caaalll Mesaaaba liiiars… November 25th, 2006

Anyway, their air permit application was submitted, and it is a mess. The rules have changed.  We’re waiting for the next Air Permit application, which will be… when???

It’s out,  and although the court rejected the arguments of Excelsior Energy saying they didn’t get enough out of the PUC, and rejected the arguments of Minnesota Power and Xcel Energy, the bottom line is that the Public Utilities Commission won, their Order stands, and so in a small way, Excelsior Energy has “won.”

There were three issues before the court:

I. Did the commission err in determining that the Mesaba project is an IEP under Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 1?

II. Does Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 2(a)(7), require the commission to undertake its traditional public-interest evaluation?

III. Was the commission’s application of the IEP statute to Excelsior’s PPA arbitrary and capricious or unsupported by substantial evidence?

Bottom line?

We defer to the commission’s expertise as to the definition of the technical term ―traditional technologies.‖ The commission’s decision that the Mesaba project is an IEP is supported by substantial evidence.
The commission has the statutory authority to consider the public interest in evaluating the terms and conditions of an IEP’s PPA. Its decisions in this regard are supported by substantial record evidence and are not arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the commission did not err in concluding that Excelsior’s proposed power-purchase agreement with Xcel is not in the public interest under Minn. Stat. § 216B.1694, subd. 2(a)(7).

Here’s the full decision, issued today at 10:00 a.m.

May 18, 2010 Excelsior Energy-Mesaba Project Appellate Decision

Word is out – tomorrow we’ll know whether the Appellate Court thinks that Excelsior Energy qualifies as an Innovative Energy Project under Minnesota statutes.  Stay tuned…